Azmi Bishara on how the Syrian regime dug its own grave

How the Road to Hell was Paved (without any good intentions this time):

In the beginning, the regime refused to lead a reform process, which the protestors, and a group of people including myself had begged it to do. Instead, the regime began a forceful repression of the uprising.

Only after it was too late does the regime finally declare that it will accede to reform—and by then, nobody believed them. Of course, the regime wanted to lead the reform single-handed, pushing the opposition aside. The forceful repression of the uprising, which by then had blossomed into a revolution, continued.

The regime begged for dialogue, and asks the unarmed opposition to take part. Nobody accepts however, and the regime wages war on its people who are now in the throes of an armed revolution.

The regime demands negotiations without any preconditions, yet nobody is willing to accept anything less than the regime’s departure as a condition to come to the table. So the regime adopts a scorched earth policy, bombing its own towns and cities and displacing its own people: even as they stood in queues outside of bakeries, the Syrian people were bombed by their regime. Even if left without a people and state to rule over, and even if only the ruins of towns and cities remain, this regime of destruction is committed to remaining in power.

The Syrian people have lost count of the dead. All they have left to see is the light at the end of the tunnel.